January 8, 2011

Democratic Hypocrisy on Deficit Reduction

As Republicans will vote to repeal ObamaCare in the House of Representatives this week, Democrats are condemning the measure as fiscally irresponsible. Repealing their health care reform bill, liberals say, would add some $230 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

The numbers come from the Congressional Budget Office and while some Republicans dispute them, I don't really care. For a decent and concise summary, I recommend this blog post though.

What matters are two things:

1) During Speaker Nancy Pelosi's tenure (2006-2010), Democrats have almost doubled the national debt, running trillion dollar deficits each year. Now they're worried about deficit spending? I doubt it.

2) The notion that Republicans should favor any measure that reduces the deficit and oppose any measure that increases it is nonsense. Republicans have reinvented themselves as fiscal conservatives but fiscal conservatism is not an end in itself. It stems from principle: the principle that government should be limited and people free.

Even if repealing ObamaCare increases the deficit, Republicans should favor it because the law infringes on individual liberties and expands the role of government in an industry that is already far too heavily regulated.